Tom Bennett fled the trenches at Artois with no money, no papers, and a dead man's coat on his back - the only disguise he has. He wanted a place to disappear. He didn't expect Dublin - or Eleanor McGuire, the woman who takes him in and doesn't ask too many questions about the deserter she's now hiding.
But Eleanor's brother Sean is done waiting. As Dublin arms itself for Easter Week, Tom is trapped between two armies with no right to shelter from either - an Englishman a court-martial away from a firing squad, and unwelcome in a city about to rise against everything he was sent there to represent. When the shooting starts and Sean disappears into the GPO, Tom and Eleanor are left to survive a week that will decide who they get to become afterward.